She shook her head. “I’m tellin’ you, Tess. Do not do this.”

“I –”

She grabbed my arm. “Listen to me, okay, seriously, open your ears for once and listen to me. This guy is bad news. Bad news. Okay, so he’s not up his own ass dickhead bad news like I thought. Instead he’s a cop-like, up his own ass dickhead who played you. Just because he’s on the right side of the law even though I thought he was on the wrong side doesn’t mean he’s right for you.”

“Honey –”

She shook my arm and shook her head.

“Listen to me, Tess, ” she hissed. “I do not get why you live your life with your head buried in the sand but I love you and that’s you so okay, you do. But because you do it’s my job to look out for you when you’re buried and right now, I’m looking out for you. You are beautiful. You are so sweet, damn, honey, too sweet. I love that about you. Everyone loves that about you. You’re forty-three years old, you had a rotten marriage to the king of all ass**les who’s finally proven he’s truly the king of all ass**les and you’re still naïve and innocent and that’s cute. It is. Trust me. Guys think so too. But that makes you a mark for players out there and you’ve managed to steer clear because life scares the f**kin’ beejeezus out of you and now when you take the leap it’s with someone who is not good for you.

Someone who is not good for any woman. Someone that any woman who’s not got her head in the sand would take one look at, know was fun to play with and then move the f**k on.

Not you. You have visions of white picket fences and making him extravagant birthday cakes until he dies. He started this shit with you as his mark and I know why he’s back, because you’re naïve and innocent and he thinks it’s cute. But he’s going to chew you up, Tess, chew you up and spit you out. He already has and girl, my sweet girl, you gotta pull your head outta the sand and see him for what he is and that he’s gonna do it again.”

“Mm hmm,” Elvira muttered and I turned my eyes to her.

Then I said what I knew to this group would sound stupid, “You all don’t know him.”

“Uh… sorry to say, but we do,” Gwen said quietly and I turned surprised eyes to her.

“You do?” I asked.

“Well I do. It was awhile ago but… uh…” She looked at Elvira then back at me. “He was… my man is in the business and there was a situation where I got involved and Lucas was also involved. He was undercover then too and…” She paused, pulled in a soft breath and finished softly, “Sorry, Tess, he was also with a girl during that operation. Her name was Darla and she was a skank, total skank, total bad news skank but he was pretending to be with her while actually being with her in order to take down the bad guy. It’s cool he’s committed to his job but Brock Lucas is known by all to be seriously committed to his job. ”

I stared at her and I knew what she was saying.

I knew exactly what she was saying.

That thing tight in my belly started unfurling again, hissing, bearing its fangs, preparing to strike.

Damn.

I had to get out of there and get it under control before it choked me or worse, poisoned me.

“I’ve gotta go,” I whispered, stepping away from the table.

Martha’s hand still on me tightened. “No, honey.”

I pulled carefully free and took another step back as I felt all their eyes soft on me. “I’ve gotta go,” I repeated.

“Not thinkin’ that’s a good idea, hon,” Elvira said gently.

I looked to Martha and whispered, “I’ll call you later.”

“Tess, honey –” she started to whisper back but I turned and hightailed it through the door.

Then I caught Ada and told her I had a headache.

Then I grabbed my purse and went out to my car.

Then I hoped Elvira, Gwen, Camille or Tracy would drop Martha at my place to pick up her car.

Then I stupid, stupid, stupidly stopped by the store and bought a six-pack of Bud in bottles, Brock’s preference, on the way home.

Chapter Five

The Light of a Warm, Sunny Day

I stared at myself in the mirror of my bathroom.

I now did this a lot. Ever since I came back from the Police Station after catching sight of myself in the one-way mirror, I did it. Looking at myself for the first time… no… actually examining myself for the first time in my whole life.

Martha was a little right but mostly she was wrong.

The last three months hadn’t been about building a Tessa O’Hara who, if Jake slash Brock saw her again, he would think, “Whoa, shit, I f**ked up screwing over that. ”

It had been about finding out who I was.

No, not even that.

It had been about not being who I was becoming.

The day after I got interrogated by a member of a multi-agency task force regarding my ex-husband’s criminal exploits, I looked in the mirror, examined myself and came to the uneasy knowledge that I had no f**king clue who I was, no clue where I was going and no clue who I wanted to be.

The only thing I knew, looking in the mirror that day and all the days since, was that I knew I didn’t want to be me.

So I was trying a new me on for size.

In all this examining, I knew I’d been doing this unconsciously for awhile, drifting through life just as Martha said, with my head in the sand but along the way I was apathetically trying on new me’s. But I wasn’t paying a lick of attention so, unlike other women, sometime in my late twenties or my thirties; I did not find the me that fit.

I liked decorating cakes. I got off on the fact people thought they were beautiful and loved to eat them. I was really proud of my bakery, how it looked, how inviting it was inside and the fact I could do something I loved and make a decent living with it.

But that was as far as I’d gotten.

I got derailed along the way and during my three months of mirror examinations of my face, my hair, my body and my soul, I knew it was when I met Damian.

He wasn’t hard on the eyes but he wasn’t hot either.

What he was was charismatic.

He could so totally be the leader of a cult of fanatics who were disenfranchised and needed to latch onto someone strong and compelling so they could let go of the struggle of daily decisions and their consequences both good and bad and allow someone to show them their path.

I knew this because it happened to me.

He was a stock broker then, youngish but already successful, going places, driven. He sucked me in with his charisma and big personality and nice car and great clothes and large lifestyle. But it was me who kept my head buried in the sand and didn’t notice he had a very short fuse, an explosive temper and his drive was unhealthy. He had to have the nicest car, house, clothes and he needed to prove his manhood in a variety of ways – with me, f**king other women and besting other men.